Part II: A talk with Chris Hansen

Legislator explains why he declined to vote for fracking bans, how he sees data centers, what it was like to work with Gov. Jared Polis in defining Colorado’s forward path on GHG emissions reductions — and on the many Thanksgiving dinners where he was the only Democrat.

 

In Part I of the Big Pivots interview with Chris Hansen, he talked about his work as a legislator, the legislation he had planned to introduce this year regarding data centers before he took the position as chief executive of La Plata Electric Associatoin and the path to 96% clean energy there that he hopes to pursue. The interview was conducted Nov. 25 by Allen Best. It has been slightly condensed and the questions, mostly, altered for clarity.

 

If my understanding is correct, you were the key vision in creating the Colorado Electric Transmission Authority, or CETA, and also the mandate that Colorado utilities must join a regional market organization by 2030. Why are these important?

I think they’re critical. In 10 years I may look back at (SB21-72) with Don Coram as the most important piece of legislation that I passed. I have a couple others I could nominate, like the reform of the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which is now solvent because of legislation that I crafted. I also think the property tax compromises that I helped broker this year and my lead on the property tax commission are probably on that short list, too.

But to your question, it goes back a little bit to what we were talking about early in our conversation. The ability to decarbonize our electricity system is the linchpin for decarbonizing our economy. To do that cost-effectively means that we need a great regional grid. Without that, it becomes more difficult to integrate wind, solar, and batteries. And it can become more expensive. A regional grid really helps to improve efficiency and reliability and also reduce costs all at the same time.

That’s why I thought that bill was so critical to require all the operators in the state get into an RTO and creating the transmission authority to do the projects that the IOUs (investor-owned utilities) in particular can’t or won’t do.

Xcel knew that we needed new transmission on the eastern plains for decades. Decades. It had been in the transmission plan for decades, and until that bill passed, they did not move forward with that plan. Is there a coincidence? Maybe, but we finally created the right conditions and pressure in the system for the IOUs to get going on the projects they need to do and have a transmission authority that can fill in the gaps.

For instance, in the southwest part of the state, we need stronger interties into the Four Corners area. This is the great opportunity for CETA. In the northwest part of the state, we need better interties between Craig and Utah. This is a great opportunity for CETA. In southeast Colorado, we need better interties between the Oklahoma-Kansas area, and the SPP into the Pueblo area. That’s another great opportunity for CETA.

So, there’s a huge amount of upside for Colorado consumers, if we can continue to strengthen our grid. The IOUs will do some of that work, but we needed something that would fill in the gaps, and that is, I think, the great upside to having CETA.

 

How soon will it be fair to judge the effectiveness of the Colorado Electric Transmission Authority?

We can already declare a huge amount of success. My theory was that even if CETA never did a project but got everybody else to do theirs in a more timely fashion, that is success in and of itself. Xcel moving forward with their line on the eastern plains and other transmission providers coming into Colorado to put forward projects (already shows) the success of CETA.

Further success will mean more projects, and whether CETA does them or helps broker them, or does the studies like the one they just finished that will be in front of the PUC that then motivates additional projects, there are lots of ways for CETA to succeed. They already have, and there’s nothing but frosting on that cake from here forward.

You mentioned the potential need for transmission between Oklahoma and Arkansas and Pueblo. That strikes me as interesting in that we tend to think our good wind and solar needs to stay in Colorado, but you’re seeing a bigger picture that ties to the nation’s —

Yeah, and getting out of that mindset that it needs to stay in Colorado is exactly what that legislation was meant to do. Because, you know, the grid needs to be bigger than the weather.

Unfortunately, Colorado is not bigger than most weather systems. So you might have a storm that would have reduced the amount of solar output in Colorado. We need to have a good intertie into Arizona so that we can import solar during the day when it’s cloudy here, and vice versa.

You also get a great advantage from the diurnal verification portfolio. What I mean by that is the wind starts blowing pretty hard in Oklahoma just as the sun is going down in the Front Range. So wouldn’t it be great if we could bring in very cheap electricity from the windy areas in Kansas and Oklahoma into the Front Range as our solar starts to go down but before our wind picks up on the eastern plains?

We have all of these regular weather patterns and regular daily patterns of when the sun is shining and when it’s not, when the wind is blowing and when it’s not.

The bigger the grid, the more portfolio effect you have, and the better off everybody is in that portfolio. And that is what we in Colorado so badly need. Having a direct current (DC) line from Oklahoma or Kansas into the Pueblo area and intertie at Comanche 3 substation, that is a massive winner. That is a billion dollars a year of savings for the region, and that’s exactly what we need to create.

 

In my mind, it’s still an open question whether CETA does that or the private sector does that.

Well, CETA is the private sector, right? They would partner with independent transmission companies, referred to as ITCs, so they wouldn’t be developing these things solo. They’d be doing it with partners, and it’s just meant to enable that investment and make sure that ITCs have the same ability that the IOUs do to get projects done, both with their bonding (authority) and with (the power of ) eminent domain, if in limited cases they need it. That’s  really what CETA unlocks. As far as value, they’re not an independent transmission company, but they would partner with independent transmission companies.

 

Let’s talk about oil and gas. Colorado has been reforming its oil and gas sector for close to 20 years. I think it was in 2006 that a meeting was held at the Paramount Theater in downtown Denver. Under the new governor, Bill Ritter, Colorado was going to impose rules on the oil and gas sector. I remember the Rocky Mountain News story describing the indignation of many of those present at the meeting. “You think you’re going to regulate us?” But during your time at the legislature, Colorado made significant advances in this regard. Could you speak to the tensions about this long, difficult process that predated your time, in part, but of which you were also a part.

I was pleased to be part of it. Let’s start with the headline, where is Colorado today. We’re the best in the world. The best in the world. We have the lowest methane emissions per unit of production of any other oil and gas operation fields in the world. Why? Because we have the best rules in the world, and the operators in Colorado are some of the best on the planet to meet those requirements.

We’ve shown the rest of the country, and arguably the rest of the world, how to do this. We’ve got great geology. We can produce those assets in the most environmentally responsible way. And we’ve proven that, I think, to the rest of the country.

Now, is it perfect? Certainly not. There have been spills and mistakes and orphan well problems and a myriad of issues that we continue to work on. But I think what Colorado has put in place since the meeting you talked about, but particularly since Hickenlooper took office, has been remarkable. The operations in the DJ (Denver-Julesburg) Basin are some of the most efficient and (result in the) lowest emissions in in the entire world. That’s something Colorado can be extremely proud of.

Many in the environmental community continue to think that we need to shut down oil and gas, or at least create a sharper down ramp than now exists. Production in Colorado and from oil has doubled since 2000 and we don’t yet have a way to burn hydrocarbons from oil and gas in ways that significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

My question is — and I struggle with this constantly — is that the state government under Governor Polis has been saying, “Well, we’ll work with you, oil and gas. There are certain limits, but it’s a long process.” And others say we need to hurry to reduce emissions from the oil and gas sector.

Where do you come down on this?

I have lost many endorsements from the far left because I wouldn’t vote to ban fracking. I wouldn’t vote to ban oil and gas in the state. And the simple reason is that it would be ineffective and would probably lead to higher global emissions if we took that step. What do I mean by that?

Let’s assume we banned oil and gas in the state of Colorado or wound it down by some deadline. What did we think would happen? Well, we’d start importing more oil and gas from other places. So ultimately, this is a question about how do we change the nature of our energy system and reduce demand for oil and gas products?

That goes back to electrification. I drive an electric car. I don’t go to the gas station anymore. I am reducing the demand for oil and gas. That is ultimately how we succeed here.

It’s not banning production locally, because all you will do is increase emissions to meet the demand that’s occurring locally. Denver still uses a lot of oil and gas, and if we don’t produce it nearby, we have to bring it in from Nigeria or Saudi Arabia or some other far-flung place, and the emissions from those places are much, much higher.

That’s not an effective policy to say, “Let’s ban it here.” That, to my mind, would have negative consequences. It would backfire as far as the climate policy. That’s why I’ve been so focused on electrification and the electricity sector, improving efficiency, driving down methane emissions.

We didn’t talk about coal-bed (methane). Methane is another place where I’ve put a lot of focus over my eight years, because methane is 80 times more powerful than C02. So let’s be serious about reducing emissions as fast as we can, and that means reducing the use of fossil fuels, and it means making sure that we don’t have methane leaks anywhere in our state. Those are ultimately going to be way more effective for our climate.

 

Governor Polis in 2018 ran on a platform built around renewable energy. I was in Pueblo last week and went to the coffee shop where he announced his candidacy. But yet, in some ways, he’s kind of a sphinx for many of us. We don’t quite understand where he is. He has the power of the veto. He has the power to influence legislation that is created. What would you have us understand during this transformative period in Colorado as regards our energy system about the role of Governor Polis. Does he have the vision? How does he work with legislators? Is it anything you can tell us?

Oh, Allen, so many things I can tell you, some of some of which I’m happy to talk about on the record, some of which probably not. But what I will share with you on the record is I have had an exceptionally productive working relationship with Governor Polis. We have disagreed on many topics, but we’ve agreed on many, many more than we’ve disagreed on. I think it’s been a massively productive partnership that I felt like I’ve had with him, both on the budget side and also on the energy and environmental side, among different policy areas.

The governor has a great team at the Energy Office. I have huge amount of respect for Will Toor, for Keith Hay and everyone who works there. Huge respect for Mark Silberg, who’s his energy policy lead inside the governor’s office. And we’ve been able to get through difficult pieces of legislation.

We didn’t talk about the clean heat bill (SB21-264) from a couple of years ago. That one I think is going to have huge dividends. It’s another example of Colorado leading the nation. We were the first state to pass such a bill to decarbonize the natural gas sector within the state. It’s another great example of how my work with the governor and his staff led to innovative outcomes.

Certainly he and I have had disagreements, but I think we’ve shared the overall goal of decarbonizing our economy. And how do we get to net-zero by 2050? That was my bill, the governor signed it, and you know, we have that on the books as our official goal for the state of Colorado. It’s that partnership with the governor and the Legislature that ultimately leads to those outcomes.

As I look back on my time in the Legislature, was it always smooth? Absolutely not. Did we tackle very difficult, complicated issues? For sure. We worked at it day by day, and when we disagreed, we worked through those disagreements. I’m super proud of what we were able to accomplish together.

 

Could you describe in a general way the source of the disagreements? Were there strategy or philosophy differences?

Absolutely. I mean, you know, I don’t think it’s any secret that Governor Polis is more libertarian than I am. I don’t think that is a secret at all. And his approach to things like safety for kids on social media, he is much more libertarian than I am on that topic. His approach to safety when it comes to high potency marijuana products, right? Way more libertarian on that subject than I am, and that’s fine.

Those are the kind of public debates that we need to have, and how do we keep the state and our kids as safe as possible? That’s a debate I have always embraced.

My distracted driving bill (SB24-065), another example, but he ultimately signed it. You know, the bill that I ran to end child marriage in the state (HB19-1316). I will never be remembered for that bill, but you know, there was a moment when I thought the governor was going to veto that bill, and we talked through it, and ultimately he signed that bill.

So I think we’ve done some incredible things on public safety. One of them is in the fentanyl bill. These are really important debates that I’m sure I will never be remembered for but were a big part of my legislative legacy.

Those are times when you’ve got to push back on a governor who is hyper engaged with the Legislature in a way that we never saw with his predecessor. And that’s okay. I’m here for it. I think one of the things that my academic training probably helped me with the most was that negotiation and back and forth and trying to get to the right answer. I embraced that. It’s one of the things I’ve really enjoyed in working with the governor, even if we disagree on a topic.

 

Were you born a Democrat? Did you have a grandfather that influenced you? Or did you depart from family history and become a wayward Democrat?

Not a lot of Democrats in my family. I have always been a Democrat, though. That’s the interesting thing. Even growing up in western Kansas, I campaigned for Bill Clinton in my hometown in 1992. I couldn’t even vote yet, and I was campaigning.

And I ran for student body president at K State and won that election. I was the first non-conservative to win that race in in decades.

That’s okay. I am comfortable in that space. I have been the only Democrat in the room for many, many occasions, including some Thanksgiving dinners. But that’s all right. I know who I am. I’m comfortable in my own skin, and I have had a lot of people call me a lot of nasty things. You can’t let that get to you.

 

What work do you see that remains to be done in the Legislature? Had you stayed in the Legislature, are there things that you would like to have done?

Oh, absolutely. I think the thing I was most excited about working on next year in the energy space was data centers. I think we have a generational challenge when it comes to handling this step change in IT load and computing load data centers. They have gone from installations that would require, one to 10 megawatts. Now it’s going to be 100 megawatts to 1,000 megawatts at a time. So this is a 10 to 100 times change in what we’re facing from that part of the economy.

I was really looking forward to creating some legislation that I hoped would be nation-leading in the data center space. I have handed all that work off to a very capable colleague, Representative Brown. I am hoping he and others will take that up this session.

Good, wonderful. And, I think it’s a given that the red carpet that current state legislative law provides for data centers will be withdrawn. That’s a given.

What do you mean?

 

Well, okay, it is my understanding, we had the bill by Senator Priola last session — and I wrote about in February — that would have provided more tax credits. And it was, “why would we want to do that? Why should we?” And that was an easy call, but what you have in mind is probably much bigger, policy that makes sure they pay their fair way in the system?

The thing I was most concerned about is, let’s not repeat the mistakes that Virginia has made. They put in some significant incentives. It led to this giant kind of gold rush or land rush, maybe is a better way to think about it, like an Oklahoma land rush for data centers in Virginia. So it was kind of bad in places like Virginia: higher costs, more transmission congestion, more distribution problems and higher emissions.

I was crafting legislation again. I hope Representative Brown is able to (sponsor it), and I’ll be here in my new role to chime in through the Colorado Rural Electric Association and other memberships that I have as the CEO of La Plata. I’m not going to disappear from this subject. But, you know, I think it’s incumbent on Colorado to get this right, and I think we can lead the way in making sure we avoid those three pitfalls that have shown up in Virginia.

I seem to understand that. I don’t think it’s about a red carpet. That’s what Virginia did, and it’s been problematic.

 

We like the idea that we could have a data center in Moffatt County and replace the coal plant that’s going down. But the practical matter is the data centers are in the metropolitan areas. Is that likely to stay the same?

There are different flavors of data centers. I think some of the developers want very close proximity to demand centers. So yeah, the more, the more people around, the more demand you have for low latency. AI products, for example.

Are you familiar with low latency AI products? Is that a familiar term?

It’s basically, I go on my phone, and I want to use AI for some function, and I want it right now. And so you need to be physically close to where those computing centers are located, which means the distributed versions in places like Moffatt County are less attractive to developers who had said land is cheaper, cooling opportunities and water resources can sometimes be more available in rural areas.

The way you make up for that is with better fiber connections into the main cities. There’s just a give-and-take there, when developers are looking at different sites.

And there are some AI installations where you don’t need to be close to the city, where you’re basically running large language models or other training models, and it’s not so important that you’re close to customers., I think rural areas are going to see a lot of opportunity in this space, along with the Front Range.

 

In the final minutes that we have, I have a question about teamwork and partnerships. You mentioned this earlier, working with Don Coram and Jerry Sonnenberg, working across the aisle. But within your own caucus, you had, it seems to me, key partnerships. In fact, I’ve heard mentioned about the brain trust that we had in recent years in the Colorado legislature. And is there anything there that you might want to us to understand about the role of partnerships in creating some of these key pieces of legislation?

Absolutely. There are three people in particular that stick out to me, one of whom you’ve already mentioned. My partnership with Steve Fenberg has been amazing and productive, and I think we’ve done some incredible legislation together, either directly as CO primes, but also just supporting each other in the other bills that we do. Steve has such a tremendous policy mind, a great feel for the politics of the building. I have absolutely adored working with him, and I’m going to miss that tremendously.

I would also mention Julie McCluskey. We were on the Joint Budget Committee together for a long period. I have so enjoyed working with her in that role, as well as her time as speaker (of the House). We did some big work together, including property tax. And you know, she was a key thought partner as we moved through the difficult pieces of the property tax debate.

And the last person I would mention is Bob Rankin. I miss working with him in a very poignant way. He is brilliant, he is caring and giving. He was always willing to listen and to work to see if we could find a compromise, and if we couldn’t, that was okay, and we’d go on to the next issue and look for the same opening.

So those are three people* that really stick out to me in my time at the Capitol.

 

I think I’ve asked enough questions. You’ve been very gracious with your time. I appreciate it.

It’s great to see you, Allen.

 

* A note on some names: Steve Fenberg has served in the state Senate since January 2017. He was elected by his fellow Democrats to be Senate majority leader in 2018 and was elected Senate president in 2022. He is term-limited and will be leaving office in January.

Julie McCluskey is the speaker of the House of Representatives. A native of Summit County, she represents a district that extends from Salida to Walden. She was first elected to the Legislature in 2018.

Bob Rankin served in the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019 and in the Colorado Senate from 2019 to 2023, when he resigned. He called Carbondale home and represented districts in northwestern Colorado.

Fenberg and McCluskey are Democrats, and Rankin was a Republican.